Smokescreen
by greyslostwho
Summary: UNLIKELY TO BE COMPLETED. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs.
1. Prologue

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**Prologue**

He watched as they walked through the doors. He couldn't say anything, there was nothing to say. He held his wife's hand tightly in his, and he could feel her returning his unsure grip. They were back.

Back. After years, seventeen years to be precise, they were back.

He wondered if anything had changed, he wondered if anything would be any different. As he looked around he noticed the differences, and they almost hurt. What had he been expecting? Everything to be in exactly the same place he had left it? Somehow he had spent all this time thinking that everything would just have stopped when they left, never to return. He couldn't imagine the team just getting on with it, pulling through and reaching the other side, remaining the thriving department they had always been. But he guessed now, for the first time, that that was what they must have done. Muddled on without two of their best.

Ellidy was a couple of impatient strides ahead, turning her head every now and then to beckon them on, urge them to follow, quicker. She was eager to enter this world, this world she had never known.

Mac smiled knowingly at her and turned his head slightly to Stella. He could feel her eyes on him, and she looked up at him with almost a sad look in her eyes. Would returning here make everything that had happened in the past seventeen years erase itself? Would feelings be forgotten, roles destroyed? Would everything go straight back to the way it was? Of course it couldn't, completely. Ellidy was a clear reminder of that. But somehow they both thought that maybe going back to the old people, to the old way of everything, that that would change the way - the way things were.

Stella's heart caught. What if there was no one here that had been before? What if they had all moved on? It had been a long and hard seventeen years for everyone, she was sure of that. What if they had all found it easier away from the lab and had gone their own ways, finding new jobs and new friends in other places. She hoped they had stayed in touch. She hoped they hadn't fallen apart because of the loss of her and Mac. But her world was uncertain these days, and she no longer had any idea what to expect.

"Come on." Ellidy said impatiently, turning once again to look at them. "I thought you'd be jumping to come in again."

So had they. But suddenly, when they could finally go back, their absence was more comfortable. Things were different from hereon in, they both knew that, and they wondered how much their miraculous return would strain everyone, most of all themselves.

Mac squeezed Stella's hand slightly and walked forward a couple of steps, bringing her with him. Her knuckles were whitening with her fist around her handbag strap on her shoulder. He knew why. Her gun was in there, and after everything they had gone through she still felt uneasy without it close to hand. He let go of her hand and slung his arm around her waist, pulling her closely into him and for a moment burying his head in her familiar smelling hair, and smiling. Ellidy rolled her eyes and nodded forwards. They followed their daughter, back into their old lives.

Back into NYPD.

**OK, first CSI:NY fic so be nice!!!!!!!**

**And review!!!!**


	2. At 4:18 the world shifts

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**At 4:18 the world shifts**

_Danny Messer was dancing with one of the nuns from the orphanage, and one of the kids she'd shared a room with once was holding her Glock, firing shots at the ceiling. She wasn't even sure where she was, but each shot was more deafening, more annoying, louder and louder…_

As Stella Bonasera drifted back into consciousness she realised that the noise she could hear was not in fact a gun shot but a knocking on her door. Checking her bedside alarm – which read 4:18 – she pulled a robe around her shoulders and climbed out of bed, forcing her feet into slippers and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She walked to her front door and peered through the peep hole. There had been a time when she was so reckless and carefree that she would have opened the door outright, but that was a long time ago. That was before Frankie, before life had worn her down to the point of emotional exhaustion. And anyway, now she had common sense. She squinted through the night, livid at whoever had thought they had a good enough reason to wake her at this hour. She wasn't even supposed to be on call.

But when she recognised the face outside her door, looking grim and tired, she opened the door right away, a million questions on her tongue. Mac Taylor stepped through hurriedly and shut the door behind him. Then he put his arms around her and held her close. She was stunned, hardly able to think. _Is he drunk? _was the first thought that came into her head. But when he drew back there was nothing inebriated about his eyes. He looked perfectly sober. Looking into his eyes, searching for a reason, she discovered something far more disturbing – fear. His eyes were like those of a cornered animal as he stared at her, frowning.

"Mac?" she asked, for the expression on his face was beginning to scare her a little. He looked down for a second, as if he was trying to bring himself to talk to her. He didn't reply.

"Mac, what is it? What's wrong?" she'd never seen him like this before. Before, he'd always been Mac, strong Mac, brave Mac. Even when Claire had died, she'd never seen this fear.

He took a deep breath and held her hand in his, gently. "Stella, we need to get out of here, now."

She laughed, because it seemed like such a ridiculous thing to say. "What are you talking about?" The drinking theory suddenly seemed likely again, "Have you been drinking?"

He gave a short, bitter, laugh. "I can't explain everything now. All I can say is we have to get out of here. I need you to go and change into some sensible, casual clothes. Then you might want to grab anything small of sentimental value you have in this place. You might not be back here for a long time."

Stella's head hurt. "What, Mac? You're scaring me now." She stared into his eyes, trying to convince herself that if she looked long and hard enough she would find what he meant there. She wanted him to tell her there was no reason to be scared, that everything was fine, that it was some sort of sick joke and he was a better actor than she'd thought. But he said nothing to reassure her.

"You need to hurry, Stella." He said, "We haven't got long."

She was ready to argue with him but the pain and terror in his eyes made her stop short. She let go of his hand, trailing her fingers through his slowly, and she turned and walked into her room.

Her heart was thudding, which was bizarre because she didn't even know what was going on. She could hear Mac rattling around in her kitchen cupboards. She pulled on some jeans and a black shirt, and then her grey jumper over the top of that. She ran her brush quickly through her hair. Where the hell were they going? She fell back on the pathetic excuse that maybe it was some kind of case. She reached for her black handbag from the top of her wardrobe. She never normally carried a handbag, only her wallet, cell phone and Vaseline in her pocket, and one of her guns tucked into her holster. Her Glock, or her Beretta. She didn't like to carry a gun all the time, but she understood its necessity at work. Carrying the gun made her feel somehow threatening, violent, and on bad days it brought her straight back to the moment Frankie had crumpled, a life ended in her shot. Now, she filled her handbag quickly. Her hairbrush, a few pieces of makeup; hardly touched, her cell and her Vaseline. Out of her jeans pocket she pulled her wallet and took a couple of notes from her drawer, stuffing them into her purse with a worried urgency. She wasn't even sure why yet.

"Make sure everything looks like it would on any normal morning for you." Mac said, standing in her doorway, frown lines more evident than they ever had been on his face. She looked up at him, confusion bright in her eyes.

"Everything has to look like you just went to work." He said. Well that destroyed the 'it's just a case' theory. She stopped what she was doing, put her hands on her hips and looked at him.

"Mac, would you mind telling me what's going on?"

"Stella, I-"

"No, Mac. You turn up, in the middle of the night, and you expect me just to come with you while you practically tell me that the world is ending and I will never come home again." She looked at him, turning on the Detective in her.

Mac smiled, almost bitterly. "Stella, don't interrogate me. I can't tell you here. You just have to come with me." He sighed, staring into her disbelieving eyes, "I'm only doing this to protect you." He said, and took a step towards her, "I'm just trying to prepare you for this. We might not be able to come back for a long time."

She knew she wouldn't get anything more out of him now. And if he had been anyone else she would just have sat down and demanded an explanation, swearing not to go anywhere until she got one. But this was Mac Taylor, and she trusted him explicitly. She would trust him with her life without even a thought. So she didn't question him. And somehow she felt better this time, anyway. Because he'd said 'we might not be able to come back' instead of 'you'.

He reached out gingerly and took her hand in his, trying to smile at her. She gave him a wavering one back, and then squeezed his hand. "Whatever it is, Mac, it's going to be ok." She said. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Then she dropped his hand and turned back to packing her handbag full of essentials. Then she pulled her coat on and looked at Mac, who was staring at her with a sad expression on his face.

"Where we going then?" she asked, and he closed his eyes for one second, as if trying for the last time to believe that this was all a dream and that he didn't have to whisk Stella away from her home and everything she knew in the middle of the night. But when he opened them again nothing had changed. And he couldn't answer her question – not yet.

"I'm driving." He said, and walked out of her room. She turned off her light as she left, not stopping to glance around one last time in an act of defiance. She was sure she would be back. She didn't know what Mac was worried about, but whatever it was, they'd get through it. They'd gotten through everything before. She didn't know what the hell was going on, but it remained surreal to her. In her head, under no circumstances would she end up never seeing this place again. That thought just wasn't feasible.

"Take one set of keys." He said slowly as she walked towards the door, still a look of complete bewilderment on her face. She shoved one set of keys into her bag and stepped out the door. She wouldn't look back. She was in complete denial. The moment they were in Mac's car and he had closed the door she turned on him.

"Mac Taylor, you are going to tell me what the hell is going on and you are going to tell me now!" she said, turning in her seat and looking at him as he drove away from her apartment building. He sighed, and then took a deep breath.

"Stella, I'm not officially supposed to tell you until you get your official briefing, and I don't even know all the details, but I know we've got to go into witness protection."

Stella didn't register. "What?"

Mac sighed again. "That mob, from the case we worked on a couple of weeks ago, well, it's a lot bigger than we thought. Everything's all of a sudden gotten way out of hand when the FBI tried to track every last member down. They're a lot more dangerous than we thought and they're working like hell to avenge Roger Ferrair's death."

Stella felt like all the breath had been knocked out of her. She had shot Roger Ferrair. She remembered it, but only slightly. Like a hazy memory that over the past months had turned into something almost dreamlike. But as she thought about it, she found herself analysing every tiny little detail. Could she have done something differently, done something better? Could she possibly have spared his life? She was running over every movement she had made, finding fault with everything.

And then she remembered the moment she had shot him. Mac had been pinning down one of the other gunmen, handcuffing him. Roger had jumped out from behind a car at the last moment and he was just raising his pistol to fire at the back of Mac's head when Stella had fired. One, well aimed, simple and guiltless shot into the man's head. Her best friend's would-be killer. She swallowed. She had made her choice that second, and no, there was nothing she would do to change it now.

"Roger Ferrair was one of their highest men. And an important arms provider. Apparently they had a lot more power than the FBI thought and they've used it so far to take out two of the uniforms that were there on that day. One of their sources is saying that they won't stop until they have everyone on the scene."

"You and me." Stella breathed. "And four uniforms."

Mac's knuckles were turning white on the steering wheel. "One of those men was found dead in his apartment, a bullet through the head, this morning. Another has disappeared, apparently without a trace. They've got FBI forensics on it because they think that it'll put the team in more than necessary danger. The remaining two uniforms and you and I are being put into witness protection immediately. They won't tell me the full extent of it but they said that there is probably a mole within NYPD. Someone who was able to get them names and addresses of everyone at that scene. We can trust no one."

Stella's heart caught. _Trust no one. _Immediately the faces of Flack, Hawkes, Lindsay and Danny jumped into her mind. It couldn't be one of her team…

Mac's hand on her knee drew her from her wonderings. He patted it gently and then awkwardly reached for the steering wheel again.

"You can't think about them now." He said, and in any other circumstances Stella would have marvelled at how Mac knew exactly what she was thinking. "We're getting out of this."

Suddenly, she was scared. For the first time since he'd arrived, properly terrified. "Will they find us, Mac?" she asked in a small voice.

He shook his head vehemently and quickly. Too quickly. "By tomorrow we will be completely different people, Stella. By tomorrow the whole world are going to think we are dead."

She swallowed. Suddenly the enormity of what going into witness protection meant hit her. She would be a completely different person, like he said. Stella Bonasera would be no more than a name on an empty grave, and Mac Taylor the same. No one would ever know what had really happened to them, no one would ever see them again, and if they saw them pass in a street, they would think they were going mad, or seeing ghosts. She would be alone in the world, forced to make up memories, live like someone who had never existed. _Alone in the world…_

"Will we be together, Mac?" she asked, and was ashamed that her voice shook so much. She was tough, she'd always been tough. And now she sounded like some child without her mother. "Do I have to do this by myself? What if they come after me? What if they find me?"

He parked the car outside a normal-looking office block. One light was on on one of the top floors. He pulled the handbrake on and looked at her.

"Stella, I don't know what's happening here. But I promise you I will be with you. I promise you I won't let them get to you, to either of us. I won't leave you." He said, and then he looked down, as if he was almost embarrassed at the rush of emotions he had just let out. She reached out and took his hand.

"Thanks, Mac." She said, and squeezed it. He looked up but didn't let go.

"This is the unofficial FBI headquarters. We leave this building different people."

She took a deep breath.

"You ready?" he said.

"Ready."

**Let me know what you think please!!!!!! This chapter is basically setting up what's going to happen. Mac and Stella are going to be put into witness protection. Review pllllleeeeeaaaasssseeeee…**

**(Did I sound too whiny?) lol!!!**

**x**


	3. There's a truth in those eyes

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**There's a truth in those eyes**

They took the elevator up through the building to the fifteenth floor, where the only light was on. Stella leant heavily against the handrail, taking in everything over and over again, trying to find any loopholes, something she could suddenly realise that would allow them to slide straight back into their nice, normal lives. But no revelations of that sort came. When the _ding _of the elevator sounded it somehow seemed to be in the distance, and she followed Mac out in a daze. The office they had entered looked like any normal office, an accountants or a marketing firm. There were people sat at the desks, typing away on computers and if it wasn't for the fact that it was some unearthly hour of the morning she wouldn't have suspected a thing. But as the two of them walked by, heads turned to look at them, sympathetic smiles and nervous glances coming their way.

They entered an office on the other side of the office. Mac knocked once, didn't wait for an answer and walked in, leaving Stella to close the door behind her. The man sat at the desk Stella had never seen before. He didn't smile, but gave them both a small nod, and gestured to the seats in front of him. Mac, ever the gentleman, pulled out Stella's chair, and she sat down, training her eyes on the man in front of them and waiting for him to say something.

"Detective Taylor, Detective Bonasera." He said, still not allowing even the slightest hint of a smile to reach his lips. "I think you understand why you are here."

Mac and Stella nodded slowly. The air in the office was charged with secrets, with answers and with emotions, and none of them replayed in the man's eyes. He stared blankly at them for a second before continuing.

"There is no need for you to know my name. I am with witness protection in the FBI." He allowed a moment of silence to let that sink in. Then he trained his eyes on Stella. "Ms Bonasera, your alias' name is Melissa Kalimerias. Second generation Greek American, similar upbringing to you. You're thirty three years old and you've just moved to Seattle, Washington. You live in a small apartment in the city and you start your new job – as a orderly in the hospital – from next Monday."

Stella said nothing. She looked at the man with distaste. She was in shock, yes, but the usual fiery Stella was not dead.

"So I go from an armed, plainclothes officer to a hospital _orderly_?" she asked, in almost a tone of disgust. "The pay for that has to be abysmal!"

Mac's hand on hers calmed her, his eyes telling her to wait, hear it out.

"Mr Taylor, your name is David Warren, and you've just moved to Miami from-"

"Stop right there." Mac cut him off. "I'm not going without Stel-Detective Bonasera. If we're doing this, we're sticking together."

The other man glared at Mac, his dull brown eyes staring into Mac's strong grey blue ones. And Mac stared him down. The man looked down at his papers again.

"Detective Taylor, I-"

Mac cleared his throat loudly. "Detective Bonasera and I stay together or we will not cooperate." He said stiffly, and Stella could see the turmoil behind his eyes. If they didn't cooperate, they would be compromising the case that hundreds of the FBI were working on cracking. They would be putting themselves in harm's way, letting the gang get the one-up. The man pressed a button on his telecom system and spoke to someone on the other end. "Can you switch the files for the other two placements with mine?"

There was a faint crackle of agreement from the other end. "Thanks." The man said sharply and took his finger off the button. He turned to Mac and Stella, his expression hardened and annoyed.

"Your names are Matthew and Rachel Brody, recently married." He said, fishing around in his drawer for another folder which he took out, flicking through it. "You're forty three and thirty nine years old, just moved to a nice little suburban place in California. Matthew's a security guard and Rachel's a stay at home wife-" he noticed Stella's raised eyebrows "-for now. There's nothing to say she can't apply for a job if she wants to."

Stella looked at Mac. Mac looked at Stella. Their eyes locked for a second and the unspoken question in Mac's eyes mirrored hers. _Could we be married? _Stella's mind whirred. _Would this be too much for Mac, still grieving for Claire? _But he was nodding slowly, so she nodded too, and they turned at the same time back to the man at the desk. Looking almost relieved, he handed them both files. Stella's read RACHEL ELIZABETH BRODY on the front, and Mac's MATTHEW JAMES BRODY. Staring down at their new selves, summarised in their hands, could have almost driven them to distraction if the man hadn't continued his instructions.

"Until an earthly hour of this morning you will stay in this building. There are facilities upstairs for you to wash and clean your teeth. When the staff come in to the downstairs offices we will go down into my accounting office, where I will let you out, under the guise of my clients." He looked between them, "Your characters begin the moment you walk out of the elevator onto that office floor. You will go outside and a car that looks like an ordinary NY cab will be out there, the license plate ending in SBMT. You will get in there, hand over some money in case anyone is watching you and ask to be taken to Brody Street. The agent driving will take things from there."

Stella had a sudden urge to laugh. This was so much like in the movies. Everything hushed and the two of them having hardly a clue what was going on. She swallowed the giggle, and darted her eyes to Mac. He was staring at her solemnly, and the moment their eyes locked she could see the same worry and fear in his as there had been in hers. She tore her eyes away. She couldn't look at Mac, because it made her want to cry. Made her movie theory impossible. Made it hurt that her best friend was suffering the same way she was.

Probably more, she thought. Because he felt the necessity to protect her as well.

"The next few hours you will spend reading through these files. Because you decided" he spoke with distaste, "not to choose the first aliases we selected for you, the backgrounds are less similar to your own. You need to know your basic family histories inside out, and all your previous career placements, where you married, and when, a few of your friends' names. All the job references are numbers that direct straight back to this office. People on the other end will deal with all your contacts." Here he made eye contact with Stella, "This plan cannot fall through, unless the gang manage to discover you there. You have to be alert at all times for anyone watching you, and everything needs to be reported back here. However, if you have no problems, you must make no contact with us."

Unspoken words lingered in the air: _You're on your own now. The two of you, against the world._

"I don't suppose I need to tell the two of you that your whole new lives will be a constant act. You will have to be alert and ready for everything to go wrong at all times. You will also need to confer on all your back stories, make sure that your identities match up completely. No one can ever know you are lying."

Another pause nearly drove Mac mad, the silence so full of _what ifs _and _whys. _

"The single most important thing I can tell you is to never make any contact with anyone. You no longer exist to them. Not even your mother, not even your closest friend. With the best intentions, whenever these things get to one person they find ways of getting out. And then you will be on your own and at the mercy of the mob. And we won't be able to get to you quick enough. Do you understand?"

Mac resented the tone he was using, patronising and belittling. He nodded swiftly and Stella followed suit.

"Any questions?" the man said, looked through his glasses from Mac to Stella, Stella to Mac.

Mac asked first. "When will you be able to discover who leaked the NYPD's details?" he asked, "Because that lab contains some highly confidential and important pieces of evidence."

Stella smiled, ironically. Mac, still thinking about the welfare of the lab, when he was never coming back. The man looked at this man, this almost famed Detective Taylor, the leader who had brought his team through so much in the past years, and wondered, not for the first time, if the stories were true. A completely dedicated officer, hardly even leaving the office since his wife died on 9/11. And the woman next to him, the stunning, wild haired, Stella Bonasera. The one person left Mac cared about enough to die for.

"All the staff will be checked in great detail, I assure you."

"And what will the team do? I head it up and Stella's my best detective."

The man nearly rolled his eyes. Stella smiled shyly at the praise. "The team will be taken care of. That's not your concern anymore, Detective Taylor."

Mac bowed his head in almost annoyance. The man was about to dismiss them both when Stella spoke up – "What will they think happened to us?" she said in a small voice, and in an instant Mac's eyes were on her, wishing he could stop the sadness in her eyes, the furrow in her forehead.

"The two of you died in a car accident heading out of the city to follow up a case lead that you had to keep strictly confidential. We will tell the team that the case has been passed on to a different department because of the emotional attachment they have. Your funeral will be in two days. Detective Taylor, the empty coffin bearing your name will be buried next to your wife and Detective Bonasera-"

"On the other side." Mac cut him off. "Bury her on the other side of me."

Stella looked at him strangely. "It's ok, Mac. You should be buried with Claire."

He stared her out, grey eyes on grey. "Stell…" he said, trying to voice his feelings. For a second something new flitted across his features, and Stella felt her palms clamming up.

"If Stella died beside me, I want her buried beside me." He said firmly, turning back to the man, "Can you have that done?"

The man looked between them strangely and then nodded slowly. "Of course. The coroners involved will be our top agents, and everything will be kept perfect secret."

Stella looked at Mac. "Are you sure, Mac? Claire…"

Mac smiled slightly. "…Would have wanted you next to us, Stell. I'm not backing down."

Stella stared down at her hands. They were shaking slightly, for which she hated them. She looked up at the man.

"If you have no more questions, I will show you upstairs. In a few hours I will bring you down into my office, and you shall go on from there."

He led them upstairs, and into a small room with a small adjoining bathroom. All that was in it was a small sofa. There he left them, going down in the elevator and leaving them to their thoughts.

"Mac, about the whole burying thing-"

"Don't." he stopped her. "Stella, we're friends. And this is happening to us now, and Claire…Claire's not here anymore. And I know she would want me to take care of you."

"I can take care of myself, Mac, I'm not a child."

He just chuckled lightly and sunk into the sofa, Matthew Brody's file falling into his lap. "I don't want to hear another word about it, Stell." He said, "I don't wanna know."

She smiled and sat down next to him, flicking absent-mindedly through Rachel Brody's file, unable to take anything in.

"This doesn't seem real." She said.

He nodded slowly, and she leant against him slightly, fitting together, comfortable there. "We'll get through it though. We'll get through it and one day we'll come back here. Come back and be Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera again."

She smiled weakly at him. "That could be the last time you ever say those names." She said weakly, tracing invisible circles on her jeans with her finger, staring down, unable to meet his gaze.

"Stella Bonasera." Mac said again for effect, and then put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing them and holding her to him for long moments. Then he lifted his arm and turned to reading his file.

Stella tried not to think that that wasn't the same kind of friendly hug she got from Flack or from Danny. She tried not to think about him wanting to be buried next to her. She tried not to think about what he'd said about Claire not being there anymore, and she tried not to wonder what he meant. If he meant…

She wasn't doing very well.

**Again, please review. I've had fabulous reviews that have made me really happy. Now I sound sad lol. And I'll try and update asap!**

**x**


	4. Down the highway into someone else

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**Down the highway into someone else**

It was about a quarter to ten in the morning when the man came back in to them. They hadn't spoken, just read through their files over and over, but their shoulders touching had given them enough comfort. He looked at them almost sympathetically. He had never dealt with anyone coming through witness protection quite like Detective Taylor and Detective Bonasera before. With anyone else he would have insisted that they stay apart for their own safety. But looking into Taylor's eyes when he had told him that they were staying together, he has felt… _empathy. _Over the years, he'd dealt with the screaming, the crying, the shouting, as he told them the federal government was ordering them to change their names, identities, lives. He'd torn people away from their loved ones, almost every day, and the one thing he'd learnt from it all was detachment. But when he saw the expression in Taylor's eyes at that moment, he didn't have the detachment and the coldness in him to separate the two of them. And he still wasn't sure why.

"Ready?" he asked. He was holding a file, filled with fake but legitimate looking accounts for BRODY, M and BRODY, R. Stella and Mac looked up at him and then at each other. Then Mac nodded, for the both of them. They stood up in silence, weary expressions on their faces. Stella lifted her handbag, her cell phone had been handed over and her credit cards, but she still had a wallet with a little bit of money in it, and her Vaseline, her makeup, her hairbrush, her Glock… additions to any normal woman's handbag, minus the pistol. But she wouldn't part from it. She hated carrying it, but she had a feeling that would start to change now. She knew she would need it. She slung the bag over her shoulder, and Mac patted his pockets, checking for his own gun, and his wallet. Then he looked expectantly towards the agent, ready to go.

The man led them to an elevator door, and they all stepped inside. They felt it going down, and no one said anything. Then, as they got one floor away from the office, Mac reached out and squeezed Stella's hand.

It changed now.

There was a 'ding' and the elevator doors opened. The agent led them out. "Thank you, Matthew, Mrs Brody. I'll have the income forms sent to you as soon as I can."

Stella's eyes darted for a second, wondering suddenly where she was supposed to channel Rachel, the housewife, from, all of a sudden. But Mac was already Matthew.

"Thank you, Bill." He said, noticing the words WILLIAM HARKEN, ACCOUNTANT on the office door. "I told Rachel I would only have the best, and if we had to make a holiday to New York of it, well…"

The agent laughed, "Too right! Now, have a safe flight home, won't you?"

"Thank you." Stella said, trying to soften her voice as she imagined Rachel to talk. "We're very grateful, Mr Harken."

"Please, call me Bill!" he said, "I've known Matt long enough."

Mac laughed. "Too long." He laughed, "Hopefully everything's sorted now and I won't have to talk to you for a while."

The agent nodded. "Quite right. But just give me a ring if there's a problem." He stopped for a second, "Oh, Mrs Brody-"

"Rachel, please." Stella said, testing the new name on her tongue. She sounded like Stella still.

"Rachel, I think you left your cell on my desk." He said, staring hard at Stella, "I'll just see." He dashed back into his office, and came out, holding a small black cell phone. "There you go." He said and handed it to her. She knew what he was doing. So she flipped the cell over and slid it into her handbag, as if she'd had it for months. Mac let out a tiny cell, and Stella knew he was glad that the cell phone would provide more information. The lack of details they had been given about their new lives had been worrying him, and at the point when the agent, now William Harken, but Mac doubted that was his real name, had asked them if they had any questions, he'd been too busy imagining the whole team standing crying at a funeral made for him and Stella. He watched the cell into Stella's bag and then something inspired him suddenly to wrap his arm around her waist. "Come one, Rach." He said, tasting the false name on his tongue, "Let's get home."

For a moment she was Stella again, looking up at him shyly, sliding her own arm around his strong torso. But then Rachel Brody smiled back. "Sure. Thanks, Bill."

The agent nodded to them as they walked towards the door. Mac kept his arm tightly around Stella, knowing anything could happen the moment they left this protected building.

For some reason, Stella had expected the world to look different. Not in a big way, just subtle differences like the world knew Stella Bonasera no longer existed. But everything looked the same. She imagined the team, coming in to the lab, wondering where Mac and Stella had got to. She wondered at what stage would the car crash be on the news, and one of the team, maybe Lindsey, would spot it and turn white in horror, fixated on what the news was telling her, unable to believe it. And she'd be right not to believe it.

Mac weaved through the people already thronging towards the taxis and found the cab with the right license plate. He let go of Stella's waist to let her in, and then he went round and climbed in. He handed the agent a fistful of notes and said in a low but clear voice, "Brody Street, please." Then he sat back next to Stella and ran his hand through his hair. Stella gave him a sympathetic look as the car sped off. He was clearly tired, and she would put money on the fact that he hadn't slept in weeks, because she knew him. He went through these phases. The cab driver said nothing to them, taking a mixture of backstreets and main roads until even Mac and Stella were lost in their own city. Then he started to speak.

"I'm going to take you to the airport, and give you your tickets, detectives. You just need to take the flight, and then outside the airport you'll be picked up in a cab with a license plate of TR5Y. He'll take you from there."

Again, the urge to laugh rose in Stella. This was worse than all the crappy CIA movies she'd gone through a phase of watching as a thirteen year old with a limited number of friends.

Mac was nodding, and then he spoke. "Stell, that cell phone." He gestured to her bag. She remembered the cell the agent had given her, and took it out. It was on, and there was a message on the screen,

THIS PHONE WILL CONTACT FBI HELP ON SPEED DIAL 1. KEEP IT ON YOU AT ALL TIMES. IT ALSO INCLUDES CONTACTS FOR YOUR POSING FRIENDS AND FAMILY. DO NOT CONTACT US UNLESS IT IS THE LAST ALTERNATIVE. GOOD LUCK.

She held it up to Mac, who nodded grimly.

"This is it, Stell." He said, and she flipped the phone back down, and stowed it back in her bag. Mac was right. This was it.

They were driving down the highway at a leisurely pace, and Stella turned to look behind her. She could see the inner city of New York growing further and further away, and it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't been thinking beyond a few months, a couple of years at the most. She hadn't thought that maybe they would never put the mob away, and maybe no one would ever make contact with Rachel and Matthew Brody to let them know that anything had changed. The team would grow old and die, remembering the loss of Stella Bonasera and Mac Taylor, and those very people would stew away, below the surface, longing for recognition from someone but each other. She suddenly saw forever, and how with every second speeding away from New York, Stella was sinking lower and Rachel was rising higher. She looked at Mac and was grateful there was no Peyton anymore. Because she wasn't sure she could have dealt with Mac's loss of her. At least Peyton had got out herself. She knew she preferred Mac broken up than torn apart.

She didn't like to think why.

A thought occurred to her. If they stayed this way forever, they would remain a married couple forever. There would never be another chance for either of them at love.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't bother her. But she worried that one day Mac might resent her as his 'wife' and wish maybe he had chosen to go to his new life alone.

She shook herself. She couldn't worry about that now. They were speeding down the highway, and everything was ahead.

**Sorry about the wait, I've just got home from a week's skiing. Great fun, exhausting, and of course no time for writing. ;-(**


	5. Your name in my sky

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**Your name in my sky**

_Danny Messer stirred slowly. He could hear the whir of the TV from the other side of his apartment. He cracked one eye open, looking at the space in the bed next to him, wondering where Lindsay had got to. The spot was still warm. She'd only been gone a matter of minutes. He rolled over and sat up, checking the clock. Shit, they'd overslept. It was eight o'clock, and he had to be in work in half an hour. Climbing out of bed, still groggy from a lack of decent sleep after their activities of the previous night. He pulled his pants on and a shirt and then walked out into the kitchen, expecting Lindsay to be dressed and ready, eating some breakfast or something, an eyebrow raised at his lateness. But she was sat on one of the kitchen stools, her deep red dressing gown wrapped around her, eyes glued to the television screen. She was watching the news. Danny took a further step into the room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he peered at what she was watching. Then the newsreader's voice slipped through the barriers in his mind and understanding flooded him._

"_In the early hours of this morning the car was driven off the road by a drunken youth. The detectives were said to be heading back from closing a case for New York Police Department. The coroner's office and the medical examiners have officially proclaimed the two detectives, Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera, to have been killed instantly. The driver of the second car is in Intensive Care, and it is still unsure whether or not he will survive." _

_Danny couldn't move. He couldn't even look across at Lindsay. The shot on screen changed to one of the lab, and showed a reporter standing outside._

"_Within the next hour, the employees of the NYPD lab will be coming in to work, without their boss and one of the highest ranking detectives. So far, we have no statement over the loss of these officers from NYPD itself, but we have been told there will be a statement made over the accident by the coroner's office this afternoon."_

_Lindsay lifted the remote control numbly and jabbed at a button, managing to change the channel. She only found more local news. This picture showed Mac's car, completely wrecked and the hood still on fire. Danny swallowed, feeling a strange, almost new emotion rising in him, complete emptiness. He had no idea how to react. He darted his eyes to Lindsay, and all of a sudden this became so so real. She was staring at the screen with tears streaming down her face, dripping off her chin, eyes glazed over. He took two steps towards her and wrapped an arm around her, not knowing what the hell else to do. She stiffened under his touch, and didn't move. They stayed like that, watching the news, until the newsreader moved on to something about a new Broadway musical. _

"_Danny…"_

"_Shhhh." He said, because he couldn't bear anyone to voice it right now. He pulled her into his arms, kissing the top of her head, holding her gently._

_Mac and Stella were dead._

Mac and Stella were on an aeroplane, high above America. Mac was sleeping, head leant against the window, jerking slightly every time they hit some slight turbulence.

Stella hadn't slept. She couldn't. She was sat, hardly able to think straight, staring down at her glass of Sprite, wondering how long it would take for them to land in LAX, wondering how long it would be before Matthew and Rachel Brody arrived at their home. She swilled the drink around in the glass and swallowed it, not able to help wishing it was something a lot stronger. Straight vodka would be nice. An air hostess walked by and took the empty glass off Stella's tray.

"Would you like anything else?" she said, and when Stella shook her head, she gathered Stella's empty dinner plate onto her cart, flashing her a killer smile and then glancing over at Mac. A knowing smile graced her lips. "Is her your…" she looked down at Stella's hand, "Boyfriend?"

Stella smiled, not sure how to respond. "Yes." She said, and the air hostess grinned and moved on, but to Stella it seemed clear she had been lying. Everything seemed so false. She glanced over at Mac, knowing something would have to be done about her lack of a wedding ring. She knew how the air hostess had known to say 'boyfriend' instead of 'husband', by looking at her ring finger. And that was decidedly bare. So was Mac's, she noticed as she looked over, though there was still the faintest of tan differences there from the years of wearing the gold band that linked him and Claire. Again, Stella felt that rush of pain that she could not comprehend. Her and Mac were just acting, it wasn't real, any of it…

"Stella?" Mac asked blearily. He opened his eyes.

"Rachel." She said quietly through gritted teeth. "Rachel."

For a second confusion showed in his eyes, and then a grim realisation. But he didn't look any sadder than his eyes always had. He smiled at her. "Rachel." He breathed, and something in the way he said it let Stella imagine for a second who Rachel and Matthew Brody were, where they'd met, how long they'd been together…

"Nice sleep, Matthew?" she asked, grinning. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and straightened his tie, sitting up straighter.

"How long until we get there?"

"Only about twenty minutes." She said. He took a deep breath. She turned to look at him, and for the first time noticed the creases on his forehead, the almost cornered look in his eyes.

"Are you ok?" she asked, looking him in the eye.

He smiled. "Sometimes when I'm on a plane I can't get what happened to Claire out of my head." He said. "I can't get that whole day out of my head."

Stella didn't know what to say. So she reached out and took his hand, squeezing gently. That was when she noticed someone staring at them from the row opposite them on the plane. She leant close to Mac, so she could whisper in his ear, at the same time putting her hand on his knee gently, a gesture she thought maybe Rachel Brody would have made.

Mac's breath caught in his throat and she brought herself closer to him, her wild, beautiful hair brushing across his face, her breath hot on his neck.

"We need to get rings." She whispered, and he felt each word, a tickle on his ear. That was when his eyes were drawn to the woman staring at them. She was dark haired, Latina, and wearing a straight black business suit which made her look appropriately formidable. She had an eyebrow raised, and for one horrible second Mac wondered if she could see through their guise. So as Stella began to pull away he caught her face gently in his free hand, and pressed the tiniest and most intimate of kisses on her forehead, trailing his eyes down her face as they both pulled back. Her eyes were wide and staring, with such a look that his breath caught in his throat again and he was beginning to wonder whether Stella was good for his respiratory system.

"Ma….Matthew…" she murmured, and he closed his eyes for a second, trying to regain his composure. She shouldn't be having this effect on him. She was his best friend. _He shouldn't be reacting like this to his best friend. _

But it felt good. It felt good, Stella's breath on his skin, Stella's smooth, sweet smelling skin under his lips, Stella's hand in his. Stella's hand in his…

Pointedly, neither of them would look down at their hands, intertwined together, fitting as if they had been that way forever. Fitting perfectly. Both of them were forcing themselves to think that it was just part of their act, and neither of them would dare let the thought cross their mind that it felt so right for a reason. Hat maybe Stella Bonasera and Mac Taylor had been just friends for a tad too long, and this was just the shove they needed in the right direction. Mac stared out the window, intent on finding some other image to fix in his mind other than Stella's face so close to his, her hair brushing his skin. He sighed. All he could see in the clouds were her eyes, wide and shocked, suddenly shy, unexpecting but welcoming the tiny kiss he had given her.

_It was just an act…_

_Yeah, _said the little voice in his head that sounded worrying like Lindsay Monroe, _Of course it was._

**OKies, please review!!!!!!! Sorry this took a while but I'm revising for exams right now!!!!! Arghhhhhh!!!!  
Anyway, much love and kisses to all reviewers!!!**

**xxx**


	6. Any house on any street

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**Any house on any street**

_Lindsay was shaking, physically shaking. She hadn't been quite like this since that time so many years ago…_

_She couldn't think about her past right now. She only had time for the present, for the one overwhelming thought eating into her consciousness. Mac and Stella were dead. Gone, forever. Her boss and her friend, obliterated in one stupid boy's drunken haze. She didn't know which emotion to draw on every second. Would it be the anger, the hurt, the betrayal, the loss, the grief? She could hardly breathe for the assault everything she was feeling was making on her senses. Danny's hand was tight in hers as they walked through the doors but she could hardly think, hardly breathe. _

"_Linds…" he whispered, and for what must have been the thousandth time that day she thanked God she had Danny and he hadn't been taken from her yet. She looked up at him, and saw all her emotions reflected in his eyes. He squeezed her hand even tighter as they stepped into the lift. "I've got you."_

_The ding sounded dull to her ears as the doors to the elevator opened and they stepped out. Almost immediately, she saw Angell, Flack and Hawkes rushing over to them. Angell opened her mouth to speak but then clearly thought better of it. After a moment or two of the five of them staring at each other, Flack spoke._

"_Have you…" he trailed off. __**Have you heard? **__didn't need to be asked from the looks on their faces. Seeing them like that, staring vacantly at each other, searching desperately for something to say, made Lindsay break down again. A sob racked her body, her eyes filled again. Danny pulled her close to him and rocked her gently. When she could finally bring herself to look up again she could see Flack rubbing one of his eyes furiously and Hawkes staring blankly ahead, unaware of what to say, think or do. He reached out and put a hand on Lindsay's shoulder._

_Everyone seemed to be at a loss for words. Danny didn't let go of Lindsay's hand as they stepped out of the corridor and into Mac's office. Immediately, she wished they hadn't. The half finished case files laid out on his desk, a pen without a lid on laid there as if he would walk back in any second to finish it. And the pictures…_

_The pictures on his desk of Mac and Claire, Mac and the team, Mac and Stella…_

They stepped out of the airport and immediately the heat hit them. Stella smiled slightly, letting the humid air wash over her. They each wheeled a suitcase out into the taxi park, in silence, hovering close to each other, unsure whether to laugh or cry as they saw the palm trees that lined the road and the still air smothered them, the breath hitching in their throats as they took a second to adjust to the humidity. Mac found the right taxi quickly and headed over to it, Stella following, both of them in silence, neither knowing what to say to the other. The moment on the plane had unnerved them both, and there was something in the air that the windless Californian heat could not evaporate. The drive was silent, Stella leaning her head against the window frame, letting her eyes drift shut. She was exhausted, she'd been up since some unearthly hour of the morning and everything that had happened so far that day had been both emotionally and physically draining. Mac watched her eyes close, finally able to train his eyes on her features without having to give some excuse for staring. He followed the line of her jaw with his eyes, her wild, beautiful hair. He let out a tiny sigh without even realising what he was doing. Sleeping like that…she looked so tranquil. The lines in her forehead had smoothed out, her afraid, pain-filled, weary eyes closed, almost as if she could open them and be trouble-free. He wished she could. He would have given anything in that second for it not to have been Stella who had gotten involved with Roger Ferrair, Stella that they were after. He knew it was wrong, but he wished it had been any other member of his team. Stella had seen too much, been through too much. She didn't deserve any more.

She opened one eye, her eyebrow rising. He turned his eyes away quickly, staring out the window. But she had noticed. She hadn't missed the tiny blush spreading over his cheeks, the glint in his eyes. And she hadn't forgotten that tiny kiss, either. Who would have thought that such a tiny point of contact could have rushed an almost unknown feeling throughout her entire body? Who'd have thought that she would be this girl, the one unable to get that one boy out of her head? She had never been that girl in high school, in college. Suddenly, something inside her was changing. She closed her eye again, and let herself drift into sleep with the rhythm of the taxi.

"Detective?" the driver said softly, looking in his mirror and seeing Stella sleeping like a child. Mac couldn't help thinking it might be the last time anyone ever addressed him in that way. "When we arrive at the house, I will drop you off. The keys are in the pocket in front of Detective Bonasera's seat. You need to take the suitcases and go in like you've been there before. The neighbours are to be told that your brother Finn bought the house and moved into it for you whilst you were both on your honeymoon. Finn's one of the contacts on the cell phone you were given by the exchange officer. There are essentials in the house, some clothes, some food, everything that you need to start off with, and the credit card that's with the keys in the seat pocket leads to the account the FBI have provided. The card is valid for a month, and then it will be discontinued. You need to buy everything you need, replace everything you had, in that time. After that, the account will just be cancelled and you will be independent from the FBI financially. Your salary will be paid into a bank account we have already established for you, under the name Matthew Brody, and there's a smaller joint account. We will commission a large sum of money into that account within the next two weeks, which can be traced back to an Aunt Geraldine in Australia who recently passed away."

Mac just nodded. He was trying to be practical, trying to take in the financial details that the agent was feeding him. But he could hardly think straight. The driver talking about weeks and months had made him realise how real this was – how it wouldn't be over in a couple of days. He might never ever go back to New York, to his lab and to his team. He might never be Mac Taylor again. Stella would never be Stella again.

But she would be to him. That was his only consolation.

The journey took about another half an hour. Then they drew up in a pleasant looking suburb with large houses and neat front gardens. The cab drew up in front of number 33. Mac shook Stella's shoulder gently. "Stell. We're here." He whispered, and blearily she rubbed her eyes and ran her hand through her hair. She smiled slightly as she looked out of the window. Of all the places she could have been relocated to, this wasn't bad. Mac gave her a crooked, attempted reassuring smile, but she just grinned to herself when all she saw in it was his concern for her. They climbed out of the cab, handing the agent in the front a few notes. They got the suitcases out of the trunk, and slowly walked up the neat little red brick garden path, Stella whispering, muttering under her breath, _Don't look back, don't look back._

But like Lot's wife, she couldn't resist looking back, and as she watched the taxi driving away down the road, and with it everything she had ever known, she choked up and she felt the tears welling in her eyes. Mac knew instantly, he knew her that well. Silently, he opened the front door with the key, dragged both the suitcases through and then took Stella's hand and led her in gently. He closed the door behind them, leaving the suitcases just in the doorway, and, still holding Stella by the hand, stepped out of the way of the window, so no one could see them. Then he wiped his thumb under her right eye where a tear track was running down. She turned her eyes up to his, and for a moment resented the concern in his. She didn't want to have to be taken care of. She didn't want to break down like this. She didn't want to be terrified by the fact that she would never be Stella Bonasera again, but Rachel Brody, a married woman without a job. And married to someone…married to someone she cared about so much… how could that ever work? Married to Mac…

She swallowed strongly, and looked Mac in the eyes. "I'm fine, Mac. You don't need to look after me."

Distance was the only way she knew to stop both of them getting hurt. And they would get hurt, both of them, if she continued the way she had. Because feelings scared her. And the situation scared her. But what scared her most of all was Mac, standing there in front of her with his eyes so full of care, concern and … something unnameable.

He stepped back a little, stung by her comment. But he wasn't stupid. He had known Stella Bonasera since their days barely out of college, at the police academy. He had known Stella from before he got married. They'd been best friends longer than he'd ever even held a lasting relationship with anyone. He knew her well enough to know she was building walls around her. Building up barriers she secretly wanted him to break down. So he stepped back towards his best friend, his confidante, his… wife?

Her eyes filled up again as silently, and without a change in his emotionless face, he wrapped his arms around her so she could bury her face in his neck. One of his arms came around her waist, and the other held the back of her head into him. She let three or four tears slip out, but that was all she could afford. Or he would feel them soaking through his shirt, and he would worry more than he already was. And they both had enough worry of their own right now, they didn't need each other's.

He pulled away after a few moments and held her at arm's length.

"Stell, it's gonna be ok. We're gonna deal with this, ok?"

She nodded, the strength and poise he admired so much back in her eyes. She held her head high, as if he didn't know she cried.

"Right." She said, and her voice was strong.

He smiled and absent-mindedly tucked a strand of wild, curly hair behind her ear. He might have been dreaming, or he might have seen a blush creeping over her cheeks. He might have been imagining things, but her eyes flicked down from his eyes to his lips, just for a second. He smiled uneasily. That tiny kiss on the plane was making his brain go mad. She was his best friend. She had enough trouble right now. She did not need to find out that her best friend and her 'husband' now seemed to be falling for her…

Falling for her… Well, that was something he hadn't even meant to think. Ever. He closed his eyes for a second and pushed the thought away, dismissing it as the jet lag and the appalling circumsatcnes.

"I tell you what – let's go out and get dinner tonight, shall we? I don't have to go to work until Monday, and I don't think either of us is in any shape to cook tonight."

She smiled, watching his lips form the words, watching his smile. She wanted to feel them on her skin again…

What the hell was she thinking? _Stop it, Stella. Just stop it. _"Sure." She said, but I don't think I have anything to wear."

Mac grinned. "Well, the agent told me there would be clothes in the wardrobes. We could always check."

She grinned. They dragged the suitcases up the stairs. The first room she came to has a large double bed in it and two wardrobes. She opened the first. There were three pairs of jeans, three pairs of smart trousers, ten or eleven jumpers – and on the end, a little cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and tiny little black beads matching the black fabric around the bodice. She smiled slightly to herself.

She and Mac were going on a date, of sorts.

**Sorry it's not been too quick in coming, but I'm very busy. Please review. I want to know as well, do you reckon I should keep going in this time frame, with little flashes to how the team deal with it, or should I have some chapters in the future, like the prologue? I want to know what you think.**

**xxx**


	7. If my heart was to stop beating now

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**If my heart was to stop beating now**

_Lindsay, Danny, Flack and Hawkes sat around one of the tables down in the morgue, unable to even think. Sid was across the room, quietly performing a post mortem on a suicide victim. But the four of them said nothing, did nothing. _

_They'd had a visit from Sinclair earlier and some other NYPD officials, telling them they were very sorry to lose Stella and Mac but business would have to continue as usual at the lab. They would be getting new people in as soon as it was possible. But the four of them hadn't heard it. They'd stood there, pretending to hear everything they were being told. And then Lindsay, without looking at anyone, had walked away and gone down to the morgue, just sitting there in the corner, her head in her hands. That's where Danny had found her minutes later, and had sat beside her, draping his arm around her. About an hour later Hawkes had come down, grim faced, his eyes cold._

"_The driver died in the ICU." He said, and his voice sounded hard and cold, "Cardiac arrest."_

_It was little comfort to them. When Flack came down later on to speak to Sid about one of the bodies and he saw them sitting there, he sat beside Danny without a word. None of them knew what to say anymore. _

_Mac and Stella were gone, and it wasn't until they had lost them that they realised what a big space they filled in the lab. What a difference it made when they weren't there. For one, they felt lost, having no idea what to do. And they didn't want someone new. They didn't want replacements, new bosses who might not see things like Mac did, or shoot as straight as Stella did._

_The door creaked open. Sid didn't even look up from his autopsy, but Adam walked in, his head bowed, his eyes slightly red. Hawkes gave him a forced smile, and gestured wordlessly to the chair next to him. He sat down._

_They remained in silence._

Mac looked at his watch. Stella had said she needed five more minutes about half an hour ago. Should he go upstairs and check? Was she ok? Would that be considered rude? He shook himself. He was not picking her up for a date. He was just her friend, and now her fake husband – God, that sounded bizarre – and they were just going out for something to eat after a long and stressful day with an unlimited FBI credit card. That was all.

He had to swallow all those notions when she walked down the stairs and he saw her. The first thing he saw were her feet, small feet, in black high heeled, stern shoes, and he couldn't stop smiling. The shoes were so… Stella. Strong but attractive, not too flashy, not too masculine. Perfect. Her long legs, slim, almost all the way up to her ears, just above the knee, a black cocktail dress, the little black beads on the bodice catching the light from the cheap light bulb in the hall and sparkling. The thin straps over her smooth shoulders, wild curls tamed and pinned up, half up, half down, framing her face. And she was wearing makeup. A smudge of colour here, a line of dark there. Accentuating the beauty he had always seen. (Hehe! 11,111 words) He couldn't help his mouth dropping open a little as she gave a little twirl, laughing for the first time all day. She gave him _that smile _which he might have been imagining things but he had never seen her give anyone else, and reached out a hand to him. He took it, tucking it under his arm, picking up his jacket and patting the pocket gently, as if checking for a wallet. She knew what he was checking for. His gun. She had hers, in her little evening bag. Truth be told, she was scared. Scared of all the possibility in her life right now. The possibility of danger – well, more danger than she'd always had, and she'd had her fair share of it. The possibility, now, of recognition – of a sudden and unprepared threat. And then there was the opposite end of the fear – the possibility of Mac.

"Stell, you look…" he said, and he knew it was a cliché but he was speechless. He honestly couldn't find a word enough to describe how she looked tonight. How, when his world was falling apart, she stood there in _that dress _and he could forget. She was blushing under the makeup, waiting to hear what he would say. She didn't know what to expect. He had always told her she looked nice before, but somehow, somehow this time the look in his eyes told her that this time meant more. Whatever he said now… that came straight from his heart.

"You look beautiful." He said, letting a smile creep onto his lips. "Just beautiful."

And that did nothing but make her blush more.

The restaurant Mac had found was a little place a few blocks away, Italian food, smiling waiters and candles. Mac was the perfect gentleman, and although Stella knew he had always been, this time, as he pulled out the chair for her in the restaurant and poured her the wine first, she found herself on a different side of Mac Taylor. Not the side of the best friend who looked on as he dated, married, grieved and then dated again. But she was on the side of the date, the side allowed to blush when he smiled at her, allowed to let her heart leap when he complimented her. She could pretend she hadn't been his best friend forever, but that this was a first date.

Well, not really. Because she knew him so well she noticed everything. The way he nervously fiddled with his tie, darting glances at her as she looked over the menu. She hadn't realised until then how hungry the events of the day had made her. She ordered spaghetti and Mac ordered a steak. They sat, waiting for their food, hardly able to think, the both of them, fighting with the strange emotions rising inside them, and their common sense, telling them they were just out to dinner with a friend. When the food came it was good, because they didn't have to stare anymore, and they found themselves easing back into the friendly conversation they were used to. But there was one huge gap in everything – NYPD and their love for the job that they had shared had evaporated within the past twenty four hours, become almost a taboo subject between them.

It was Stella who breached it first.

"Who'll they get to replace us?" she asked, "On the team?"

He sighed and looked her in the eye. "I don't know, honestly. I've always had someone lined up for my job if anything ever happened to me, but-"

"Who?" she asked. He stared her out for a second, and realised her concern was for her team and for her job, not for herself.

"You, of course." He said, like it was the most obvious decision in the world.

"Not Danny?"

He shook his head. "Stella, I've worked with you the whole time I've been a cop. You're the best I know."

She felt that totally out-of-character blush rise in her cheeks again. "But someone once said Danny would be lined up for the boss after you…retired."

"Writing me off already, were they?" Mac laughed. "Jeez. No. I had you down from day one."

She smiled a little. He continued. "But as my obvious replacement isn't possible, I guess they'll get someone in. They'd consider Danny too young, and frankly, so would I. He's a great cop, but he hasn't had enough experience. I guess they might get Angell more involved with Flack's side of things. She's good at what she does."

"Uh huh." Stella said. She'd lost interest in the subject already. And her eyes were beginning to sting.

"Mac?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you reckon they know yet?"

He nodded sharply. "Of course. The feds will have had it on the news from this morning, I bet. They'll know."

There was a silence for a moment as they imagined how their team would react. Stella could see Lindsay sobbing in her mind. And Danny. This would break Danny.

"I don't want to think about it." She said in a small voice. It was a bizarre feeling, imagining what people would feel like when you were gone. And for most people it was just that, an imagining when you were having a particularly rough, contemplative day. But for it to suddenly be a reality – thinking that right at this moment, people were crying because they thought you were dead – that was something unimaginable. Mac could see all this turning over in Stella's head, and he knew her well enough to know how she was hurting, but she wouldn't show it, and he reached out and took her hand. At first, it was just Mac holding his best friend's hand, offering her comfort, offering her solace. Innocent. Then she lifted her gaze to meet his and it became so much more. His eyes were darker than usual, dark and veiled, where hers were wide, wide and filled with emotion. It became Matthew Brody holding his wife's hand, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand slowly, a tiny movement sending chills throughout her body. And her heart was beating so fast, all her blood was pounding with it, through every vein, every artery, until she was sure he must be able to feel it in her hand. His eyes scanned every inch of her face, and he hardly stopped to think as he leant forward across the table and pressed a soft kiss on her lips.

The world seemed to stop along with Stella's heartbeat. Everything seemed to freeze, as if some greater power wanted to capture the moment, so no one could take it away from her. Mac's lips were soft, smooth, and her whole mouth tingled with the sensation of them. His hand squeezed hers tighter, as if he was begging her not to pull away. She didn't move. She just closed her eyes.

Mac's heart was thumping in his chest, so loudly he was sure the whole restaurant could hear it. Kissing Stella on the lips was a thousand times better than kissing Stella on the forehead. He remembered the feel of her lips from that single cheek kiss eons ago, so rounded, so smooth, so sweet. With that moment just of gentle contact, emotions he hadn't even known he still had the capacity to feel came flooding through him, things he hadn't felt since Claire. And, surprisingly, that didn't scare him, it enthralled him. He laced his fingers through Stella's, a smile spreading over his lips as he pulled back from the kiss and she opened her eyes slowly. Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide, the shocked expression on her face would have been almost comical in any other situation, at any other time, with any other person.

"Sorry." He said at the same time as she said: "Mac."

Both of them gave an uneasy smile, and almost without realising it, Stella put her hand up to her mouth gently, touching her lips, as if they were suddenly cold from the lack of another's there.

"Stell, I-" he began, but trailed off, unable to think exactly of what to say.

She squeezed his hand, still in hers. "It's ok, Mac." She said gently. The smile that lit up her face threaded hope back into his heart, and those strange emotions reared their head again.

He looked down at the tablecloth. "I shouldn't have…"

She shook her head, raising her eyebrow and saying, "Oh? Why?"

His eyebrows furrowed at the strange question. "Well… it's been a hell of a day, Stella, and…"

"And what?" her eyes were shining now, defiant. When he said nothing, she continued, "I'm tired, I'm vulnerable, it would be taking advantage? Is that it?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"I don't want to hurt you." He said solemnly, and she knew more certainly than she'd ever known anything that he meant it.

She took his other hand in hers. "It might hurt more if you just stop now and pretend it never happened."

He stared at their joined hands for a few minutes. She stared at him, wondering if she had gone too far, crossed some unspeakable line or something. Then he looked up, a glint in his eye she hadn't seen for years back there.

"What do you say we get the bill and go home, eh, Rachel?" he said.

She smiled.

**Reviews are like money. Lots of it is always good.**


	8. This strange new perspective

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**This strange new perspective**

_Somewhere in London, a phone rang. The woman who it belonged to raised her head and looked at the clock. It was six in the morning. Who the bloody hell was phoning her now? Rubbing, sleep from her eyes, she answered blearily. "Peyton Driscoll speaking."_

"_Dr Driscoll, it's Lindsay Monroe."_

_Her forehead creased in bewilderment. "Lindsay?"_

"_I…we've had some bad news."_

_Peyton thought the other woman's voice sounded thick with emotion, like maybe she had been crying._

"_Oh?" For some reason her throat was tightening, in anticipation of what the CSI from New York City was going to tell her._

"_Mac's dead, Dr Driscoll. He and Stella were killed in a car accident yesterday. I thought you should know."_

_She could have sworn for a moment, the second hand on the clock stopped ticking. But she swallowed, pulled herself together and spoke again. Her voice sounded strange, disjointed and thick. "Thank you for telling me. Did… did they… were they…"_

_Lindsay seemed to understand what she was saying. "They were both killed on impact. And the guy… the guy who did it died in intensive care."_

"_Right." Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. _

"_I just wanted to let you know – there's going to be a funeral the day after tomorrow. They've delayed it so they can make it public. I'm not asking you to, I just thought if you wanted…"_

"_I'll come, Lindsay. I'll get a flight as soon as I can."_

_There was a silence from the other end. She thought she heard a sniff. "Bye, Dr Driscoll."_

"_Goodbye, Lindsay."_

_As the dialling tone sounded, she drew her knees into her chest, shaking slightly. She looked down at the shiny new engagement ring on her finger. She had been happy. She'd gotten over Mac. She was getting married. She had understood that he would never love her the way she needed, wanted to be loved. And now he had gone and died and it hurt a bit more than it should._

Stella hadn't slept. She'd laid awake all night, staring at the ceiling. They'd walked in, deliberately not touching each other, almost shy in each other's company, which was a first. Mac had poured them both some whisky and they'd had one glass, sharing blankly at some hospital drama on the television screen. Then she'd stood up, smiling timidly.

"I'm going to bed, Mac – Matthew. I'm tired. And we've got a lot to do tomorrow, we've gotta sort the bank accounts out, buy food and stuff and oh!" she let out a little gasp as he caught her shoulders gently and pressed his lips to hers for the second time that evening. Neither made any move to further the kiss, just held there for a second, Stella's eyes wide only for a second before they drifted shut. Mac pulled away, ever the gentleman. "We'll get everything sorted tomorrow. Good night, Stell."

"Rachel." She scolded, but a grin the size of the Statue of Liberty was spreading across her face. "Night."

Her fingers trailed through his as she turned and went up the stairs to her room. She'd found a pair of red satin pyjamas in one of the drawers, and changed into them before comfortably sliding under the bed covers of the large kingsize. It did cross her mind for a second that there was always the possibility of there being only one bed made up – she hadn't checked the other rooms yet, but she forced that thought from her mind. She couldn't think about Mac right now. It was think, and go crazy, on so many different things.

But she hadn't slept. Thoughts seemed to creep their way into her head and force themselves into her consciousness. Mac, the team, being "dead", her own funeral, a gravestone with her name on it…

And if Stella hadn't slept, Mac hadn't either. He'd remained sitting in the living room, wondering why the hell he had just kissed Stella again, but thinking that because she had seemed to like it, it was ok. She'd just been talking and all he could think about was the feel of her lips on his and what she had said at the restaurant about not stopping now, and he had just gone for it. Dove in at the deep end. And sometimes that paid off. If he hadn't have known better, if he wasn't a grown man, he would have compared what he was feeling right now, for his partner, his best friend, to what he felt for his first girlfriend in high school. To what he felt for Claire. _Stop it, Taylor. Stop it now._

So he'd wandered upstairs, searching for a room to sleep in. Unable to resist, he stood outside Stella's door for three minutes, wondering whether he should check on her. But he chickened out and found that the spare bedroom had a comfortable mattress and sweet-smelling pillows. Unfortunately, however, he had not seemed able to succumb to the welcome sleep he needed. He couldn't get her out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. He put it down to the stress of the whole experience, and stared at the closed curtains all night long. It wasn't much of a change for him. He hadn't slept for three months after Claire, and he spent many a whole night in the lab back in New York. _Back in New York – _that was a bizarre thing to say.

She was up early in the morning, and when he came down the stairs, still in his joggers and tank top that he slept in, she was standing in the kitchen in red satin pyjamas, making French toast. They looked up at the same time, and their eyes locked. For a moment it was weird. They were in the same house, in their pyjamas – an intimacy that had escaped them as solely friends. Then Stella's face broke into a smile, hiding her tired eyes, and they both knew at the same moment neither had slept. They didn't try to guess why. They weren't ready yet to venture into that dangerous territory.

"Morning, Matthew."

"Morning." He grinned, "You know,…Stella…, no one can hear us here."

She smiled with the air of someone superior. "I'm just following protocol, …Mac."

It was better with normal names. It provided something of a reality check on them both, Mac thought. Stella shoved a plate of French toast under his nose. "Hope it tastes ok." She said, grinning meekly, "I'm not a cooking person, really."

Mac laughed. She sat beside him with her own plate, the two of them eating in companionable silence.

"It's delicious, Stella."

Was she blushing? She checked herself. Whatever she was feeling, he was still Mac and she was still Stella, and she **did not **blush.

After they both finished, Mac lifted both their plates and walked over to the kitchen sink.

"You don't have to-"

He shook his head, cutting her off. "You cooked, I'll wash up. We're still a team, if not in NYPD."

She smiled at him. "Thanks." She said, and on a whim, walked over and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm gonna go upstairs and get ready and we should go into the town and sort the bank out, and I'll look around for a job."

He smiled and nodded as she walked off up the stairs, pretending little things like that didn't affect him as much as they did.

**Awwww, Mac and Stella gone domestic!! Bless them!!**

**Ok, loads of things:**

**1) Sorry this was so late. If you've read the profile, you'll know about my exams and my "Semi-Permanent-Almost-Hiatus". That's why it's so long in coming. But exams are nearly over, so more should be up sooner this time.**

**2) Sorry it's not the longest of chapters in the world. I wanted to leave it there, just follow on from the kiss and lead into their new/ish relationship. I want to devote the next chapter to them going out.**

**3) Sorry to all those who may have wanted more hardcore SMacked after the kiss, but I want them to take it slowly, not to rush into things, because that's how I believe they would be.**

**4) Sorry about bringing Peyton in, Peyton-haters, but she won't be threatening the SMacked at all, and I needed to branch off in the little flashes a little. Couldn't have too too much sobbing Lindsay or everyone would get suicidal. Have decided to keep those going for now, but not necessarily fitting with the time frame of what happens to Mac&Stella.**

**5) This one's not an apology – look out for my new fic, Shattered Shells and Heavy Hearts, an AU SMacked/DL/FlackAngell fic set in World War One!! Should be up shortly after exams finish, but it's a big project so should go on for a long long time….**

**Thanks to everyone who had reviewed so far, I really appreciate it and love support and constructive criticism. Please drop me another, I'm trying my very best to make my first Smacked fic substantially better than my first fics in other categories which shall remain nameless (I think I called a character the wrong name the whole way through in one, and posted like 10,000 words in one chapter on another). Thanks so much. :D**


	9. Looking straight on through

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**The GLW award for best reviewing and feedback goes to… dun dun dun…**

**The CSI:NY category!!**

**(much cheering!)**

**Looking straight on through**

_A tall, dark haired man and woman stood there to meet her. Peyton took a deep breath fixed her ring steadily on her finger and lifted her bag. Flack and Angell smiled at her sympathetically._

"_Hi." She said, and her voice still sounded strangled, strange._

"_Hawkes has got room for you but he's working right now. We're on our way from a scene so we offered to come pick you up."_

_Angell was darting Flack sideways glances and he was standing slightly too close to her. Any other time she would have chuckled to herself about the pair of them, dancing around each other. Today, however, was not a day for chuckling or anything of the sort. It was a day for grim nods, walking briskly towards the detective's squad car, saying very little as they drove back to NYPD. A day for trying to see changes in the building as she walked into the lab. Changes that hinted she's ever left. A day for trying not to see Mac round every corner._

"_Peyton!" She heard Sheldon's familiar voice and allowed herself a small smile. She watched as the CSIs, lab techs, morgue assistants and God knows who else emerged from the various rooms, staring at her shamelessly. Like she'd returned from the dead. Bad choice of words._

"_How're you holding up?" she said generally, looking around her at the usually bustling, now highly subdued place. Mac and Stella's losses had been felt, and hard._

"_Not so great right now." Hawkes said softly and it seemed his words were echoing off every other person in the building, as they agreed totally._

She dared to slip her hand into his as they walked through the town centre, shyly, almost. They'd been to the bank and had all their accounts activated and gotten a feel for how it would be dealt with earlier in the morning. Now Mac had a fairly bulging wallet and Stella a respectable sized purse – wedged in between her Glock and the FBI-linked cell phone. She wasn't taking any chances. Eager until the very last minute to get out of their house, she had suddenly stopped, checked herself.

"What if someone sees us, Mac, what if someone recognises us?"

He had put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "In California, Stella, really? And if on the off chance we were to see someone we recognised we will just keep walking, pretending nothing has happened, and they'll think they've seen a ghost."

That hit hard. The thought that she could probably walk into the lab right now and everyone would just think they were going insane.

Even so, she was constantly seeing Flack out of the corner of her eye, or the couple walking arm in arm just ahead of them suddenly morphed into Danny and Lindsay. The bank teller bore an uncanny resemblance to Sid, and…

_Pull yourself together, Bonasera. _

So she slipped her hand into Mac's and walked a little closer to him. They'd found two gold wedding bands in the jewellery box in the house, and she'd put hers on straight away. Mac had stared down at it for a second, as if the world had stopped around them.

Claire.

She hung in the silence between them. Stella could almost see her standing there, hair like a straight curtain down her back, eyes glassy, not smiling, not frowning. Just observing. It was at that moment that Stella realised she was never going to go away unless Mac wanted her to. And he didn't, not yet anyway. And there was nothing Stella could do about that. She sighed dramatically, but checked herself. She had no right to resent Claire, to resent Mac holding onto her. No place, no right. They were **married**, that counted for everything, and what was she? The best friend. The shoulder to cry on. _The partner._

Mac wasn't the kind of man who would talk, right then. He didn't want to talk about how difficult it was to put on another wedding ring, how hard it was not to compare her and Claire.

How strange he was feeling that it _was _Stella he wanted in front of him then, instead of his wife. How, even after so many years, he still felt disloyal, cheating, dirty.

And slowly he had slid the ring on, unable to smile and unable to look at her for fear he might see someone else. And he wanted to wait to look at her until he could only see her. Stella Bonasera, Rachel Brody. But he heard her breath catch in her throat and realised that she'd actually thought for one moment that maybe he wouldn't, he would back out now and leave her hanging. Like everyone else in her life ever had. And somehow that was the most endearing thing about her; that she still didn't fully appreciate how much he cared about her. But then again, maybe he hadn't shown her. Banishing all thoughts of ghosts and forgotten futures, he had put his arms tightly around her and held her there. Stunned at first, she held still, barely daring to breathe, to think. His arms curled around her thin body, noticing, not for the first time, how bizarrely fragile she felt under his hands when he knew how tough she truly was. Then, sighing, she leant her head on his shoulder. He could feel her warm breath on his neck, and in that moment it took all his self control not to back her up against the wall and kiss her like he'd been longing to…

Whoah, where did that thought come from?

"Mac?" interrupted his thoughts, her soft voice, his name…

"Huh?"

"You sure this is ok?"

He smiled. That was his Stella, still worried about his feelings when he'd nearly let her down. _His Stella. _When did she become his?

**The day you fell in love with her. **

"Yeah." He said, but his voice was almost strangled, choking on unsaid things.

So here they were now, walking down the high street towards the mall, hand in hand, Matthew and Rachel Brody. Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera were far away somewhere. Hidden underneath layers of falseness, of emotion they wouldn't usually allow themselves to feel. That was some sort of contradiction, he was sure. He liked the feeling of her hand in his, her long, slender fingers encasing his own callused, thick hand. He could get used to this. Really.

Stella wandered around a few shops, picked out a couple of shirts and pairs of jeans; she wasn't that much of a shopping girl, to be honest. She'd always been a low-maintenance, minimal make-up and sensible shoes type person anyway (though maybe the latter had something to do with her being quite so tall and not wanting a repeat of high school where she'd towered over a couple of disastrous boyfriends). But she wasn't really all that into trailing round shops all day, trying things on and choosing things from rails that looked like bombs had hit them. Another thought crossed Mac's mind – maybe that had something to do with the fact she had never had a mother to take her shopping, not really, to teach her the trick of the trade or whatever it was that females did on a day in town. She didn't even realise it, but the reason Mac pulled her slightly closer as they walked towards the coffee shop was because he wanted her to feel wanted. Maybe even loved.

Sinking into the chairs in the little coffee bar, opposite each other across the small table, they were suddenly far more at ease. His hand reached out to take hers over the table, gently stroking his fingers over hers.

Somewhere across the mall, a woman watched them. Tall, with dark curly hair. Latina.

Wearing a dark business suit, and talking into a smart looking black flip cellphone.

**Ooooooooooh…. Any of you remember my suspicious woman?? Well, you do now.**

**My last day of exams tomorrow. Thank the Lord.**

**Love to all my amazing reviewers - you're the best a girl could ask for, honestly.**

**Love,**

**xxx**


	10. Everything changes eventually

**SMOKESCREEN **

**MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did. **

**Spoilers: None.**

**Exams are over!! How happy am I?? Happy enough to post another chapter, that's what…**

**Everything changes eventually**

"_Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to say our goodbyes to two of New York's finest officers, Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera…"_

_Flack was struggling through this. He'd never been a particularly emotional person, and when they'd first got the news he'd been one of the strongest of the team. But this was harder than he'd ever thought. Everyone was there. Not just NYPD, even Sinclair, but Horatio Caine was standing near the back with Calleigh Duquesne and Eric Delko, who he wasn't even sure had had more than one or two conversations with either Mac or Stella. Detective Valens was there, from Philadelphia, with a little blonde standing stoically by his side, face set and eyes sad. People Mac and Stella hardly knew, really. It seemed to Flack that representatives from every police department they had ever worked with were there. And then there was the team, Peyton an honorary member again…_

_Danny had his arm round Lindsay, and she was sobbing silently. No amount of anyone's condolences or efforts to cheer her up had worked. Hawkes and Peyton were standing behind them, both of them staring ahead, fighting tears in their eyes. Then there were Adam and Kendall and the other lab techs, a couple with their eyes full, a few of them crying openly. Sid was there with his wife and daughter, whose hands he were grasping tightly, holding onto them and never letting go. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, staring at the two coffins until his eyes blurred. _

_He felt something warm in his hand. Angell had slipped her hand into his._

"Mac?"

Her voice was unsteady, unsure. From where he was cooking for them both in the kitchen, he called out: "What?"

When she didn't reply, and he head a strangled sound, he rushed into the living room. Stella was curled up on the sofa, hugging her knees into her, watching something on the television screen. The news. A funeral.

Their funeral.

Stunned speechless, Mac sunk into the sofa next to her and roughly put an arm round her, drawing her closer to him. The two coffins had been lowered into the ground and the cameras were scanning the crowd, masses of people. It shocked the both of them to see the sheer number of people who had turned up, people they had affected. And then it spun to the team, and Lindsay and Danny and Adam were crying, Flack had his arm around Angell, Hawkes was staring blankly ahead, and there was…

Stella's heart almost skipped a beat as she recognised the woman standing with Hawkes. She should have realised Peyton Driscoll would come back to haunt her. And yes, she recognised the irony in that. Peyton was crying, and her eyes were red and face blotchy, which made the inner, shallow Stella feel a tiny bit better. But then she felt Mac tense as he recognised her, and she sighed. Too noticeably, she realised.

The news reporter was saying something, but neither of them could make sense of any words. As the cameras spun back to the caskets in the ground, and the familiar headstone beside them, that they had both visited more than a few times, the memorial that read CLAIRE ALLISON TAYLOR; and then their friends, the team, Sinclair, Horatio Caine and so many others stepped forward to throw roses into the graves, Stella let her arm snake around Mac's body, as he held her shoulders tightly. And they simply held each other close until way after the news had moved onto something else, seeing pictures in their minds of people sobbing, weeping, baring their souls… because they thought they had lost **them.**

It was Stella that moved first. She rubbed her eyes fiercely, but was surprised to find them completely dry. She'd run out of tears to cry, and that was more painful both to her and to Mac than had she been weeping the Nile. Then she slowly disengaged her limbs from him, letting her arm slide over his back as she drew away. He just wouldn't stop staring at the screen, and she wished that she knew what to say, what to do.

"M….Mac?"

He looked up at her, his eyes so bleak… she'd never seen them like that before. She assumed that they had been like it when Claire had died, but she had avoided his gaze for weeks. Just looked slightly to the right or to the left. Because she hadn't wanted to face up to it. Claire had died. Claire had died, and sometimes she had wished that Claire wasn't there with Mac anymore…

He said nothing, but stood up and caught her arms again, running his hands up her bare arms to her shoulders, trying to eliminate the goosebumps that the funeral had raised on her skin.

"I'm sorry, Stella." He whispered, looking away from her.

"Sorry for what?" she asked, her eyes wide, "Mac, you have-"

"I should have seen Roger Ferrair before you had to shoot him. I should have been able to take care of myself out there, not leave you to do that… it's my fault… it led to all this…"

For a moment she said nothing, and then she took his face in her hands. "Don't apologise to me, Mac Taylor. Everything I did that day was totally my own decision, totally justified, and there was nothing you could have done about any of it!"

"But I shouldn't have put you in that position, Stella…"

She stepped back. "It wasn't down to you, Mac. You know as well as I do that I am perfectly capable of doing my job! I shot Roger Ferrair because he was going to shoot you. Another officer. It wasn't because it was _you. _I would have done the same for anyone on the team.. Hell, I would have done the same for anyone, Mac!!"

"But this is so hard for you…"

That was the last straw. "It's hard for you too, Mac!! Just as hard, maybe even harder, because you've got to pretend to be married to the woman you didn't choose, when the one you did died!! I'm not some damsel in distress who needs your protection. We both know that I am perfectly competent at my job… and I made the right decision – no – the only decision, the day I shot Ferrair! So don't you stand there and act like you need to look after me, because you don't!"

Finally, she was crying. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked at him, his eyes icy, his eyebrows furrowed, revealing his own pain.

"Say something, damnit!" she screamed at him, "You think that it's just hard for you because you think you could have prevented this – but what do you think it's like for me? I have to live like a wife to a man for possibly forever who will never love me as much as much as his wife, and I'll always feel guilty that I'm taking Claire's place and I'll always feel like it was kinda my fault because sometimes I wished you would just love me like you loved her – as much as I love you!"

The silence was thick and heavy in the room and she clapped her hand to her mouth, turning paler by the second, realising that a stupid row about shooting Ferrair had made her shout everything she had sworn to herself she would never say for fifteen years.

That was the moment that he stood up and caught her in his arms, crashing his mouth onto hers and pulling her down with him.

**I know I promised the makeover chapter, but this kinda flowed out, and Mac and Stella were kind of getting desperate….**

**Sorry for not exactly resolving anything yet, but I've still got a fair few chapters left in me.**

**I hope no one thinks this came too fast, it's my opinion that the stressful situation they are in is making their emotions race and maybe they do things they wouldn't otherwise have done…**

**And…. Our mysterious woman failed to make an appearance this chap. But you have definitely not seen the last of her.**

**xx**


	11. Memories locked in a box somewhere

**Memories locked in a box somewhere**

Six months later

_"Danny? Hey, it's Lindsay here. I was just wondering when you were going to be in from work. Flack called and we're invited out for a drink tonight in Mac and Stella's name… it's been six months now, can you believe that? Anyway, I'm not driving everyone home again, you'd better call us a taxi. I'm pregnant, Danny, not your cheap cab – and make Sid come, would you? He works too hard. Thanks. Love you. Bye!"_

_Lieutenant Daniel Messer smiled as he listened to the voicemail message again. Just hearing Lindsay's voice at the other end made him smile._

_Six months had passed, and the pain had dulled a little. Stella and Mac were gone, they were never coming back, but somehow they weren't completely gone. Every corner he turned in the NYPD crime lab he now ran, due to his promotion only two weeks ago to Lieutenant, he saw Stella pacing down clutching some test results tightly, or Mac running his hands through his short hair, trying to get inside the mind of the perp. They weren't gone; they'd left an imprint on life in the lab, and in some ways that made it harder for them all. Especially Danny, sitting at Mac's desk in Mac's office every day now - thinking constantly about the dangers that Mac and Stella's deaths had woken him up to. Dangers round every corner, that weren't even related to the job. Dangers that meant he was constantly worrying about Lindsay. He remembered with a shiver, the phone call from the hospital he had gotten telling him Lindsay had been admitted, only two months after she's found out she was pregnant._

_He remembered driving to the hospital in a daze, thinking he could not deal with any more loss._

_He remembered her laid there on the hospital bed, and the doctor telling him that she nearly lost the baby, but it was ok, and that she had to rest at home for her whole term._

_Flack and Angell had been phenomenally supportive. He wasn't even sure where the pair of them were with each other, but they'd been witnesses at the small private wedding ceremony he and Lindsay had had when they found out about the baby, not wanting to play around any longer, Mac and Stella's death having shocked them into the realisation that no one was immortal. He'd seen them dancing together at the small reception, and they didn't look at each other like they were only friends._

_Hawkes and Sid were the same as ever, quietly grieving still, compartmentalising from their home lives. Danny thought Hawkes had been dating, but he was never sure. Peyton had gone back to __England__ after a week or two, and she was planning her wedding for the following summer. Adam was working through a training course to become a police officer, and eventually this would lead up to field work and a badge, he hoped. Danny was fully supportive of the young lab tech. He had been hit hard by his bosses' deaths, and only in work could he seem to find escape. He reminded Danny slightly of his younger self. He sighed, unable to imagine a time when they wouldn't still be tainted with grief over what had happened._

* * *

Mac walked into the kitchen, smiling at the sight of Stella pouring out their bowls of cereal. He walked up behind her and pressed a light kiss to the back of her neck, gently, revelling in the feeling of her shudder as she leant back into him slightly.

"Morning." She murmured, and his hands rested lightly on her waist for a moment. "Morning."

They sat around the kitchen table, eating their bowls of cereal and drinking their coffee, and Mac flicking through a New York newspaper he'd managed to get hold of.

"Hey… look at this." He muttered, half laughing, as he pointed to the marriage announcement 'Danny Messer and Lindsay Monroe'. Stella gave him a quick smile.

"They'll all be all right, Mac." She said, "By now, they'll have practically forgotten."

Both of them knew that wasn't true, that the team wouldn't ever forget, only that the pain might dull a little, but it was easier to think that maybe their fake deaths weren't causing quite so much heartache anymore.

Stella stacked their bowls into the dishwasher, and caught sight of herself in the kitchen mirror.

"I need to dye my hair again." She mused, tugging one of the curls with her fingers. During their first few weeks in the programme, they had had to make alterations to their appearance to make them a little less easy to spot. Stella's hair was a darker shade of brown, and Mac's a few shades lighter, but they'd slipped into this life so easily now, so at ease with each other and with everything that they almost didn't see the need for disguise anymore. It was as if they'd been Rachel and Matthew Brody forever, and they could balance them to the public and Stella and Mac in private as long as they needed… the dark, brooding feeling of danger and regret underneath everything seemed to be slipping away, and they were beginning to get comfortable, almost. NYPD seemed a long time ago, a lifetime away.

For two people whose careers had been their lives, they'd managed well to adjust into this new, alternate reality. Mac had been promoted, he now headed up a team of security guards outside a scientific research facility, and although it was nothing like the detective work that had defined him, he was managing. Stella had thought about getting herself a job, but had been at a loss as to what to go for, having very little qualifications other than her honours from the Police Academy in a different name. So she was still at home for now, pondering… and that didn't seem so bad anymore. She'd actually come to like cooking, to like Mac coming home to her everyday, and although it wasn't a permanent fixture… for now it was enough. She'd been considering teaching actually, maybe in a primary school, or getting some sort of qualification, but she couldn't quite bring herself to find herself another job. That would bring with it some kind of finality… like she was drawing a line under Detective Stella Bonasera, like she would never be able to go back.

She turned the dishwasher on and turned back to Mac, who was staring down at the paper but not really reading, staring blankly. She'd found him to do that occasionally, just zone out completely, and she understood, because she had them too. Moments where none of this had happened, where they were going to get up and head into the lab like nothing had changed.

But there were too many reminders that things had changed. Too many factors in this new life that proved that everything was different, the most obvious of them being that Mac and Stella shared a bed now, held hands when they walked along, knew each other in a way they'd never known each other before. Stella wasn't at all _unhappy _with that arrangement, in fact, it was the best thing that had come out of this whole mess, but somehow, sometimes, they didn't feel like themselves anymore. They felt like they really were Matthew and Rachel Brody, not Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera, and somehow that made their feelings feel… see through. Like glass, like if anyone looked hard enough they would see that they weren't feelings that connected the real people inside.

And that was her greatest fear. That although Stella Bonasera loved Mac Taylor, and had ever since she could remember, Matthew Brody only loved Rachel Brody, and it didn't run any deeper than that.

Across the street, with perfect view of the pair of them laughing and talking through the window, a woman sat in a black SUV with blacked out windows. She had long black curly hair and skin the colour of walnuts, and she was holding a non-descript black cell phone in her hands.

As it rang, she picked it up, a small frown touching her lips.

"Everything is secure, sir."

**A/N: I am so sorry this has not been updated before, I've had a busy year!!! I've started college, and I'm actually in the middle of exams now, but for some reason I'm still posting!! I hope you're all prepared to join this story right where we left off, because I'd love to get it finished, and you've been possibly the best reviewers I've ever had :)**

**Now, just a reminder that this was started a long time ago, before all the DL baby drama, so that's playing out in it's own way, and nothing bad will be happening to Angell, because I heart Flangell. End of. I had to take it six months on, though, because I lost the thread of the fic a bit and this was the only way I could seem to regain my grasp on the story.**

**Hope you're still up for sticking with me, and please check out my CSI: New York & Cold Case crossover fic, Lost Generations. Hiding in the crossover section it gets little attention :P**

**Love you all, and hope to post again relatively soon.**

**GLW**


	12. Festering under the surface

**Festering under the surface**

_He traced small circles on her back, marvelling at the softness of the peachy-pale skin, smiling slightly as he felt the bed move with each of her deep, sleeping breaths. They'd been dancing around each other, Flack and Angell, in the months since Mac and Stella died. But last night… last night had been different, somehow. He'd driven her home after their drinks with the remaining members of the team – they'd called it a night relatively early, Lindsay's eyelids beginning to droop, her hand resting flat on her bulging stomach. They'd walked through into the kitchen of her apartment, and as they'd both leant to switch the light on, their hands had brushed, sending a frisson of electricity down both arms. The light had flickered on it the dark, and they'd stood there, with the sides of their hands touching on the light switch, blue eyes staring into brown._

_Flack still couldn't quite understand how they'd gotten from standing there, perfect stalemate, like that in the gradually brightening apartment, to having Angell pressed up against the door, hair fanning out on the wood, Flack assaulting her lips. It had followed on from there with relative ease, despite neither of them having made a move in the past seven months, and now they both laid, listless and still in her bed. Flack flicked his eyes to Angell's alarm clock, and though usually he wouldn't use the clock to check the date the three numbers underneath the time stared out at him. He was almost shaking as he rolled onto his side, looking away from the clock, towards the woman sleeping soundly beside him. A woman who, although it had hurt her, was not as scarred as he was from the loss of friends like that._

_It would have been Stella's 36th birthday._

The dress he'd bought her was beautiful, and she couldn't help being surprised that he'd picked something so nice, so stylish. She remembered sitting in the kitchen once with Claire, listening to her friend complain incessantly about her husband's awful taste in clothes – things had obviously changed so much since then, and there was no way he could even have bribed Lindsay or someone to buy it, as he had asked her to buy Peyton's birthday present once, a lifetime ago. Then, that had stung like hell, now it was nothing more than a dull ache. Stella was thriving in a new way now, every day, every moment at a time, struggling not to think of the future even as far forward as tomorrow. That way, she could pretend this _thing _between them was real and forever.

Maybe it was, she dared let herself think, as she admired herself in the mirror. The dress was a deep burgundy red, perfect against her new, darker hair, and knee length, long, brown-skinned legs descending endlessly from it… it was simple in design, yet somehow perfect. She gave a little smile as she smudged on the tiniest amount of makeup, unable to contain both her happiness and her excitement. She was _proud _of him, almost. He'd chosen her a dress, a beautiful, probably relatively expensive dress, and he hadn't screwed up. It wasn't just that he'd bought her a dress anyway… it was that it was a perfect fit, it clung in all the right places, the perfect length for her long form… he'd thought about _her _when he'd bought it, hadn't just picked it up off the rail. And hell, that really meant _something, _didn't it?

"Stella?" his voice from the bottom of the stairs was apprehensive, almost nervous. She flashed another glance at herself in the mirror, trying to wipe the ridiculous smile off her face, relatively unsuccessfully, slipped her feet into her shoes – flats, or she'd nearly be taller than him – grabbed her purse and ran down the stairs towards him, her heart leaping at the expression that crossed his face.

"You look…" he started, and trailed off. She couldn't help the _giggle _that escaped her lips – she was going to have to address that problem – and she let him kiss her cheek, feeling him linger slightly too long, and all of a sudden she wasn't sure she wanted to go out. She wanted to take him in her arms right here, and…

"I didn't think we'd go out…" he said, smiling at her, as if he knew her thoughts. "You took so long to get ready I went down to the store, and I've got everything ready… I'll make your favourite…" He looked sheepish, like he was afraid she wouldn't approve of his ideas. She smiled, and kissed him on the mouth, feeling just a flick of his tongue against her lips before pulling away. Sometimes it was impossible to believe he had been married, he'd dated, he wasn't some shy, foolish teenager who didn't have a clue how to _do _this.

"That would be **brilliant.**" She smiled, and his hand trailed through hers as they walked into the kitchen.

Cooking together was something they hadn't quite mastered yet. They were both fair at cooking, their own things, in their own kitchens, in their own space. Throw them both together, a limited amount of room, a limited number of utensils, and usually either World War Three or something altogether less bloody, more inappropriate broke out. Not much cooking ever actually seemed to get done, and a huge mess was generally made. But today Mac had everything laid out ready, chopped and prepared, and by some miracle everything ran smoothly and they ended up, less than an hour later, sat, head close, at their kitchen table, smiling incessantly at each other and sharing Thai shrimp noodles.

"You've outdone yourself, Mac." She smiled, laughing, and then her eyes softened. "Thank you."

He put his spare hand firmly over hers on the table, a smile so fleeting she wasn't sure if it was even real or not. "I didn't think it would be the easiest day… I wanted to make it special, since you can't see anyone you care about…"

She cocked her head to one side, flipping her hand so she could take his, and leant forward to kiss his temple and whisper in his ear, "I care about you."

He didn't make any move to pull away, but he was frowning as he spoke. "I know, Stella, but… this isn't what you deserve… to be forced into a fake marriage with someone like me… to not have that chance to find someone, to _choose _someone…" he trailed off, and his other hand had found its way to her face, cupping her cheek, and her eyes were filling up.

"That's what you've been thinking?" she whispered, her eyes uncontrollably flicking to his lips, force of habit. "You've been thinking that I'm being forced into this…"

"You have. I just wanted to make today-"

She put a finger to his lips. "Mac. I… I've been thinking this whole time that you've been forced into this with me… that's it too painful for you to remember, that you're just waiting for the out…" he was frowning, wondering where the huge smile on her face had come from. "And all this time you've been thinking that I don't want to be here… Mac, there isn't anyone in the world I'd rather be forced to pretend to be married to…" she giggled slightly, and Mac couldn't help his eyes fluttering down to the bottle of wine, wondering how much they'd both had to drink – they were still too close to one another, feeling hot breath on each other's faces… "I was worried about _you._"

He frowned.

"I thought…" she continued, and her voice was suddenly shaky, like what she said had a sudden and relevant importance. "I thought it would be too hard for you to pretend to be married to someone… after Claire, and me being her friend and your friend and then everything that's happened between us…"

To her surprise, he cut her off with a kiss, his arms winding tightly around her. She looked up at him, eyes wide and unsure, as he broke away.

"Stella… Claire… I'll always love Claire, somehow, but…" he trailed off, looking down at their feet, jumbled together, as if trying to gather his thoughts. "But she's… Claire's my past now… I'm never going to forget about her, I'm never going to stop thinking about her everyday… but she would have wanted me to be happy, Stella… and I'm happy now."

For a moment, she said nothing, and then she wasn't sure exactly which one of them moved first, but they found themselves entwined together, practically falling off the kitchen chairs, lips fusing, hands reaching.

"You really mean that?" she asked breathlessly, her appetite for Thai Shrimp noodles suddenly replaced by a different appetite altogether. She wanted to drown herself in him, lose all reality for a short while.

He nodded, and raised his eyebrows. "Did _you_like the dress?"

She gave him another kiss, tugging him up, off the chair. "I loved the dress…"

"And I lo-"

He was stopped, mid-sentence, by a ringing of their doorbell. Both of them started, instincts telling them that any entrant could be a danger, they had to suddenly be back on their guard, they had to suddenly be Rachel and Matthew Brody, without fail, without even a hint of a mistake – their lives could depend on it. They sprung apart, fear in their eyes as they looked each other over, Stella desperately trying to flatten mussed hair and calm swollen lips. They walked together to the door, a sense of foreboding suddenly spreading all over them, and Stella's eyes flicked momentarily to the cabinet in the hall, where she knew there was a Glock and Beretta stashed, loaded, ready.

Mac opened the door, his hand coming to rest lightly on Stella's waist. Standing outside were a young couple, the woman showing signs of a pregnancy heading fast towards full term. She looked between them, checking Stella's dress and Mac's shirt, and maybe the fact that he had one too many buttons undone, and blushed slightly.

"Sorry to interrupt your evening… it's just… we're the new neighbours, just moved in across the street. I'm Elena, and this is my husband Rodrigo." She flashed them a wide smile, her dark eyes shining. Stella held out her hand for the woman to shake, and instead she was pulled into a hug.

"I'm Rachel, and this is my husband Matthew." She said, smiling, and Mac shook hands with Rodrigo, and received a similar hug from his wife. "We haven't been here all that long, either, just over six months."

Elena smiled brightly, and cupped her hands over her belly.

"Well, we don't know anyone in the neighbourhood, so we thought we'd better get ourselves acquainted. Hopefully we'll see you around." Rodrigo smiled, and his voice was slightly accented. Russian, maybe, or Polish.

Stella and Mac said their goodbyes, and closed the door, leaving Elena and Rodrigo, if they were even their real names, walking arm in arm down the street.

Rodrigo was tall, non-descript, with fair hair and pale skin.

Elena was dressed smartly in a black maternity business suit, with skin the colour of walnuts and long, dark, curly hair.

**A/N: oooooh!! Sorry the update's taken so long, again, guys. :L**

**Review.**


	13. Smile like you mean it

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry it's been another slow update. This one goes out to The Sway Wannabe, who is constantly pestering me to update… thank you, it's what I need :) Hope you like it. Remember, this started mid-season ****5ish****, so we have no Lucy, but a different baby, no dead Angell and DEF****INIT****ELY**** no Adam/Stella. AT ALL.**

**Smile like you mean it**

_Hawkes was half running down the hospital corridor, the time seeming to fall through his hands, like an hourglass. Lindsay's baby couldn't be coming, not this early, and Danny had sounded so panicked down the phone, and no one could seem to get hold of Flack, Angell, Sid or Adam…_

_He reeled into the room, and what he saw there gave him the shock of his life._

_Everything was pristine, perfect, the way it should be. Lindsay, looking tired and flushed, but healthy, sitting up in bed, and Danny perched on the edge, holding a tiny baby swathed in a blue blanket. Angell and Sid were already standing at the end of the bed, smiles breaking on both their faces. Lindsay looked up as Hawkes entered, giving him a tired smile._

_"Don just went outside to call you and Adam." Angell breathed, and then returned her gaze to stare at the tiny sleeping boy in Danny's arms._

_"Liam Mac Messer." Danny said quietly, and they all nodded. There hadn't been another option for the middle name, not really, and there were no prizes for guessing, either, what it would have been if the baby had been a girl. _

_They all stood quietly around the tiny new life, as if, for a few moments, they could forget._

Stella gripped the rim of the toilet bowl until her knuckles turned white, heaving forward, her whole body convulsing as she emptied the contents of her stomach. Eventually, she managed to sit back on her heels on the toilet floor, shaking, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, though not with the nausea. She was shuddering in fear.

She wasn't stupid, never had been, and she knew that as this was the third morning in a row she'd been up before the crack of dawn vomiting into the toilet, something wasn't right. And she thought she knew all too well was exactly that was.

She couldn't have a _baby. _This was impossible, this was ridiculous, she was in a _fake marriage, _for Christ's sake, and however wonderful Mac might be, however wonderful she might be able to pretend it was… she simply couldn't be starting a family. For one, their situation was still dangerous. Would always still be dangerous. And Mac was… Mac was Mac, and although in the last few weeks things had been perfect, blissful between the two of them, she couldn't help thinking that this was too much, too soon.

She leant against the cabinet, counting weeks, counting months, counting chances. They'd been trying to be careful… they were always trying to be careful, but the night of her birthday, the emotions had been so heated, and the words Mac had almost said hanging in the air between them… she just wasn't sure. That was just under a month ago now…

The nausea rose in her throat again as she realised the possibilities, and she retched into the toilet, salty tears streaming out of her eyes with the force of it all.

When it was over, she rinsed her mouth out, dried her face, and darted out of the bathroom for her early morning run, keeping her head down and trying her utmost to avoid her _husband. _

***

Stella, now Rachel, had become a stereotype of a stereotype of a housewife in the past weeks. She went out for a run early every morning, cooked breakfast – she was, they both were, beginning to get the hang of cooking now, slipping with ease into their guise, rather than with struggle and Bolognese sauce coating the kitchen walls – visited Elena next door, who was on bed rest now, due to the difficult pregnancy, did a spot of shopping, cleaned the house, and cooked dinner with Mac when he got in from work in the evening. It wasn't perfect – the frustration at not being able to _be _cops, the one thing that had always defined the pair of them, was undeniable, and sometimes unbearable, but they muddled through, smiling and holding hands and musing about the team back in New York. Stella had become friendly with Elena next door, and there was something comforting about that.

In retrospect, Stella would look back and wonder whether or not she could sense there was something not quite right with Elena and Rodrigo, something almost akin to the situation she and Mac were in, and that was why she'd taken so very well to the young Hispanic woman, but in the next breath she would wonder how she could possibly have known. Elena's house was kept perfectly, immaculately, and their guise was flawless, without a single fault line.

The story Stella knew was that they had just moved from Ohio, and they'd been married a year, and the baby they were expecting was their first. Rodrigo was a high-school teacher, Elena had worked for a firm of surveyor's before her maternity leave. They seemed very much in love, very prepared for the baby, very normal, and Stella found and almost jealousy rising inside her at the perfect little mirage her friend was laying out, that everything, for her, was wonderful. Everything was natural, nothing was forced, pretend.

Looking back on it, she would laugh bitterly at how wrong she had been.

But that day, when she stopped in with a box of shop-bought brownies for her friend, and sat on the edge of her bed and poured her some green tea, she was all smiles and light.

"I hope she comes soon…" Elena complained, patting a hand absent-mindedly over her distended belly. "I'm not sure how long I can take this."

"It'll be worth it when she arrives." Stella smiled, her own stomach twisting in knots at the thought of her epiphany that morning.

"Are you alright, Rachel?" Elena asked, cocking her head to one side and studying her neighbour. "You look… pale."

She swallowed, wishing her cheeks would regain some colour instantly, so Elena would brush off her comment as a mistake, wishing she didn't have to take the home pregnancy test in her shopping back in the hall up into the bathroom she and Mac shared and watch a clock to determine her own future.

"Just a virus, I think." She half-whispered, wondering if she sounded in the slightest bit convincing, "Just been feeling a little washed out lately."

Elena gave her a reassuring smile, her dark eyes softening around the edges, and she leant her head back slightly, closing her eyes.

A loud buzzing from the bedside drawer made her lift her head, and the transformation was tangible. Her eyes hardened, her fists clenched, and she jolted up in the bed with surprising agility. Within seconds, she'd pulled a black cell phone from the drawer and pressed it to her ear, refusing to meet Stella's eye.

"Yes… uh huh… of course… everything's fine… I'm with a friend… ok… thank you…" Elena's answers to the voice on the other end were sharp, and her voice seemed to take on a slightly different tone as she spoke. Stella watched the changes in her friend's face, changes most people wouldn't have noticed, but years in interrogation gave her a distinct advantage. Elena's eyes were suddenly wide, and she looked very young, but her jaw was set, her teeth clenched – she looked frightened, but determined. She plastered a false smile on her face as she hung up the phone, sliding it straight back into the drawer, out of view, and turned to Stella.

"My mother in law." She said, and although she was very good at it, Stella recognised the lie, "I'd rather not speak to her for long."

And the silence fell between them, because they both knew it was all smoke and mirrors.

***

When Mac came home, he went straight upstairs to shower, whilst Stella was cooking dinner, humming lightly to herself and trying to forget the events of the day. What he found, carelessly left by a mind that was overwrought by worry, changed everything.

Stella turned round when he stepped into the kitchen, smile plastered over her features. Mac held the home pregnancy test in one hand.

"Stell?"

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes were stinging. She hadn't wanted him to find it, not like that, still in it's packaging, it's owner not quite ready yet to use it.

He took a shaking step towards her, and she could read the fear in his eyes mirroring her own.

"I… I…" there were no words that were bridging the gap between her racing heart, her rushing brain, and her mouth, which was gasping for air.

"Did you?"

"Not yet." She managed, and he closed the gap between them and took her hand, wrapping his arms around her. He was there, he was present, but something about his hold was hard and cold, soaked in terror.

They stood there in silence for long moments, lost in their own thoughts.

"Want to… do it now?" his voice was low, so quiet she almost missed it.

***

He held her hand as they waited, and she put her head in her hands and refused to look at him. The safe haven she'd created was crumbling.

After the allotted time, he picked it up, because she couldn't.

"Negative." He whispered, and she burst into tears.

***

She was already half-asleep when he climbed into bed, and her pulled her close to him and kissed her just in front of her ear.

"I love you." He breathed, and she was just awake enough to hear.

***

Next door, screaming in pain and cursing in Spanish, the woman whose name wasn't really Elena gave birth to a baby girl, and as her husband placed her in her mother's arms for the first time, she whispered her name.

"Ellidy."

**Reviews are always appreciated.**


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